Are you carrying around a 5-pound metal container filled with water? You may be a victim of the “Stanley Cup Craze” that has unfortunately swept the nation in recent years.
Just to clear things up, I’m not talking about the NHL trophy that is given out to the best hockey team every year. Hockey players have the right to be obsessed with the Stanley Cup, since that’s kind of what they are playing the entire season for.
I’m instead talking about these big-ass metal cups that you’ve probably seen while you are out and about, or if someone close to you has already fallen for the the Stanley Cup trap, you could probably see one right now if you opened up your kitchen cabinet.
The whole obsession started when a website called “The Buy Guide” listed the Stanley Quencher Tumbler as one of their top products, which in turn shifted Stanley’s primary buyer demographic from blue-collar workers to women on the internet.
Ever since that happened in 2019 and the company shifted their marketing solely towards women, Stanley Cups have been flying off the shelves and their sales have raised the profits of Stanley from $70 million a year in 2019 to $750 million in 2023.
Wow, that’s great for the Stanley Brand, which has been around since 1913. Many younger people have made the mistake of thinking they are a brand new company because of their recent success, but ask anyone that’s a little older and they’ll tell you Stanley has been around for a long time, and forever changed the thermos game.
But here’s the deal folks…it’s just a cup. Stanley is selling these things for $35 to $45 a pop, and no one is asking any questions about it. I’m all for people being hydrated, but if you are currently reading this (probably boiling with rage) as you sip from your five pound water cup, would it be a bad time to let you know that there are far less expensive cups that could also keep you hydrated?
Stanleys took off because of a combination of social media clout, color choices, and people all of the sudden realizing that they need to drink more water. Now, the cup is just as much of an accessory as it is a drinking apparatus.
A recent release of a “Special Edition Stanley” at Starbucks caused some delusional fans of the product to camp outside of a Target at 4 a.m. to ensure that they could get their hands on pink Stanley cup:
What are we doing people?
That might have been crazy, but it’s nothing close to how the special drop of Stanley cups went at other locations. Videos of people reverting back to their caveman and cavewoman days and fighting over these trendy water vessels (that fit in a cupholder!) have been going viral on social media.
Here’s one where a sign on the display says “two per guest,” and I’m sure people respected that piece of paper:
And here’s another where a grown man got tackled trying to exit the store with Stanley Cups that he appears to have failed to pay for:
I never thought that the fall of civilization would get kickstarted by the release of a trendy, TikTok-backed, uncomfortably large drinking cup.
And just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with the Stanley company itself. I actually applaud them for figuring out how to game the system and send their profits margins soaring to the moon on the backs of gullible, easily-influenced consumers.
But if people are acting like animals just to get a cup they can drink out of, I’ve definitely got a problem with the Stanley Quencher Tumbler (what a weird sentence to type out).
Be a trendsetter and drink out of a good old fashioned glass, or even really any other reusable water cup. And if you have to have something that says Stanley on it, throw it back to the thermos that got the company started.
